Doug Wills

Managing Editor, London Evening Standard & The Independent

Doug Wills is Managing Editor of the London Evening Standard and The Independent. His role involves working closely with all editorial executives and dealing daily with circulation, advertising and production directors co-ordinating the complex operation of producing daily newspapers and their editorial digital channels.

More than 900,000 copies of the Evening Standard are distributed every afternoon giving a daily readership in print and across its fast-expanding digital platforms of 11 million readers a month.
The Evening Standard is recognised as setting the agenda in politics and business, as well as being first with major news and sports stories. In early 2009 the Evening Standard was bought from Associated Newspapers by Alexander Lebedev. The following year the Lebedev family purchased The Independent. The i newspaper was launched by the group later that year and became widely regarded as an outstanding success having been launched when the sales of other national newspapers were and have continued to decline. The ESI Media group has invested in digital platforms of The Independent which now have more than 75 million unique users.
Doug Wills began his career as a trainee reporter with Thomson Regional Newspapers. He held a number of positions in the provincial press, including deputy editor, before moving to London in 1986 at the time Robert Maxwell was launching the short-lived London Daily News and the London newspaper market was as competitive as it is today.